Addressing the situation in a conference call with reporters today, Flajnik said: "She reached out and wanted to come up to the winery with some of her friends, which she did.

"My business partner and I showed her around the winery, tasted some wines. We went out to dinner and just kind of chatted about life and the experience and all that kind of stuff. A nice girl but this was right in the middle of the time when I was deciding whether to be The Bachelor or not.

"After all this is said and done, I just want to go back to my life in Northern California where most people really don't know who I am and I prefer it that way, so ending up with a Hollywood celebrity is not something that I ever imagined doing."

As for whether his winery has seen a boost in business following his appearance on the ABC franchise, he said: "We've always sold really well and we score really well - we just scored 90 points on our pinot last week, so we've always made really nice wines.

"I think the majority of purchases because of the show are novelty purchases, one bottle at a time so they're not serious wine consumers. We really try to differentiate business from Bachelor and Bachelorette related things because we do take our business and our wine very seriously."